Red Hood and the Fenix
by MissScorp
Summary: Will the Red Hood's aggressive and anti-social like ways prevent him from taking the hand of friendship? One-shot. T for swearing and mild instance of violence.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but for the general concept of my story and theme...

**A/N:** This story has some strong language (meaning I use the f-word a couple times) so be warned! I would call this a strong T+, less than a M rated story.

* * *

He heard his cellphone ringing over the blare of electric rock and boisterous voices. He set his bottle of draft down and reached over to tap the screen with one finger to see who it was that was calling him at that hour of the night. _Hrm, _was his thought as his speculative glance took note of the name flashing on his caller ID. _I wonder why the old man is calling me_. Curious about what Bruce could possibly want to talk to him about, Jason tossed a ten spot onto the bar before beginning to stroll towards the door.

Not a one of the hoodlums or beatniks that were seated at the tables he passed made a move to impede his exit. If anything, they were only to happy to see that he was finally leaving. A smirk crooked the corners of his lips as he pushed open the door and stepped out into the shadowy alleyway. He couldn't blame them for being nervous around him. He _had_ left a rather massive trail of broken bodies in his _attempt_ to rid Gotham of its corruptive gang elements. But then, he thought with another smirk, it wasn't like he was exactly known for playing _nice_ with others, either.

A vicious brawl erupted at the other end of the alley, a couple of hulking hoodlums throwing vicious punches at each other while their mates cheered and jeered from the sidelines. The sounds of fists meeting flesh echoed off the grimy brick walls. Blood splattered rusty dumpsters and trash cans. Frightened rats scurried to find safety. A scruffy tabby cat screeched when it was startled from where it had been feasting behind a pile of garbage. Broken glass, cigarette butts, crack pipes and other debris littered the ground beneath his feet. But Jason Todd paid none of it any mind as he made his way over to where he'd stashed his bike. For him, the streets of Gotham's East End section were home. He had been born and raised upon these streets, knew every twist, turn and dark hole by heart. And was more comfortable here then he'd ever been roaming the streets of the Gotham Heights district.

He turned down a murky back street and walked over to where a rusty metal dumpster, its paint peeling, stood. Fresh snow had fallen and covered its lid. Rats scurried amidst the trash, seeking refuge amidst the refuse. The entire area smelled like rotting, stinking garbage. Jason undid a latch and opened one side of the container, which hit the ground with a _bang_. A thick layer of snow muffled the majority of the sound. Hidden inside the rusty metal shell, however, was a black motorcycle that he'd customized himself. He settled on the seat of the bike before hitting a key to dial his voicemail. But the one who'd called him was not, in fact, Bruce Wayne. It was the youngest Wayne- and current acting Robin- who'd called him.

"_She_," the message began.

Jason's lips curled at the corners. He didn't need to think long or hard about which female it was that his youngest brother was calling him about. There was only one woman he knew who possessed the ability to get beneath a guys skin like that: _Fenix_.

"_Got hurt_."

Something in Damian's tone immediately captured Jason's attention. He found himself turning and looking towards Wayne Towers. He found himself wondering where Dick was, and whether or not he was alright. Blue eyes glimmered with keen speculation and something more, a dark and turbulent emotion that Jason would never verbally admit to feeling, but which he internally knew was love. As complicated and violent as his relationship often was with his oldest brother, he did honestly care about Dick. And did worry whenever he received phone calls from his youngest brother that suggested that Dick may have been injured while he was on a mission.

"_She got hurt while she was saving me from her father. She put herself between me and the knife he was wielding_." There was an audible pause. "_And I don't understand why she did it_." There was another pause. But this time it was followed by a low sigh fraught with exhaustion. "_I don't understand why she cares so much about me. Not after everything I have said and done to her_."

There was frustration as well as uncertainty now in Damian's voice, reminding Jason that even for all the kids guts and attitude, he was still only an eleven-year-old boy. And playing in waters that he, at twenty-one, still had not learned how to safely navigate.

"_I don't know how I'm supposed to think, or feel or act towards her now. Everything's all messed up. And it's all _her_ fault_."

The words were said in Damian's usual sneering tone, but what Jason heard was a dark and desperate need to understand the woman who'd risked her life for his. But it wasn't something he could rightly explain to his youngest brother. Trying to understand the mind of women was hard enough for any man to do. But when that woman also happened to be Raya Kean? Understanding became downright impossible.

"_Oh yeah_," he heard Damian say. "_And as if all that's not bad enough? She's left me here with _Drake."

And of all those grievances that his kid brother just listed, Jason knew that the last one was the one that Damian was the most upset over. That Damian had as unstable and volatile a relationship with Timothy Drake-the third Robin and current acting Red Robin-as he did, was a source of some amusement for him. Of course, it was also one of the greatest points of contention between him and the very woman that the kid was calling him about. Jason had crossed swords with Raya quite often in the last few years-most often after a confrontation between himself and either Tim or Dick. Attacking either man and hurting them in any way was a sure fire way to provoke the ire of the Fenix.

But thinking about his previous fights with his younger and older brother also had him remember the events of his last confrontation with Raya. It had been a few nights after Dick had defeated him for the right to wear the cape and cowl of Batman. He'd run into her while she was out on a routine patrol of Park Row. He hadn't intended to pick a fight with her. He'd truthfully wanted wanted nothing to do with any member or associate of his family in fact. But there was a voice in his head reminding him about how there was absolutely nothing in the world more fun or arousing than tangling with a pissed-off Fenix. But Raya had not been interested in giving him the reaction he'd wanted nor the release that he'd needed. No, she'd brushed him off like a mosquito. Like a gnat. Not with a slash of temper but with irritation. He knew that that meant something. _Now_. But back then, her refusal to rise to his bait had only managed to prick his own volatile temper...

* * *

"I refuse to play this game with you Jason," she said in a quietly subdued voice. "Bruce and Dick and Tim have all fed this need you have to hurt them so that they hurt as badly as you do. But I refuse to fill that empty hole inside of you with violence. I will not do it tonight," she took a step back. "Nor on any night."

"I didn't take the Fenix for a coward."

She merely brushed him off. "You call _me _the coward and yet it is _you _that is running and hiding."

"I'm neither _running_," he retorted in a hard voice. "Nor _hiding_ from anything."

"You've been running ever since you were brought back to life," she shot back. "The only emotions that you allow yourself to feel are anger and hatred. Anger and hatred that was incited by the words of a well-skilled liar and grand manipulator and which you've unjustly been aiming at your family for the last couple years."

Even though a part of him-the part that was ruled by logic and truth- knew she was right, he still bristled at her words.

"Considering how my _death _was never aven..."

"So what if your death wasn't avenged?" she cut in. "Is vengeance the only thing that matters? Or doesn't the fact that he was torn apart by losing you count for nothing here?"

"He didn't even feel remorse about not avenging my death!"

"Because he was grieving for you every waking moment of his goddamn life!"

"His final words to me were of regret for having made me Robin!" He hurled the words at her, damning her for reminding him of those words, and damning Bruce for having spoken them. But mostly he damned himself for even giving a shit. "He saw _me _as some type of a goddamn failure...as something to be ashamed of."

"And like always Jason," she glowered at him. "You _heard_ what Bruce had to say to you," now she glared. "But you didn't bother to _listen _to what his actual words to you _were._"

Her eyes were ringed with the heat of her anger. But it was the sight of her sympathy that had his jaw clenching, his fists bunching, his fury igniting into that familiar cold haze. Sympathy was the last goddamn thing he wanted from her. He glared at her-one long and frustrated stare to let her know just what he thought about her pity. And where exactly she could shove her sympathy for that matter. But she merely fixed him with a look that spelled _do something_ in huge green letters.

He stepped closer, just a few inches taller, but still subtly intimidating, and snarled; "I don't need some pretty little kitten..." he took another step. "Lecturing me about the difference between _hearing_ and _listening_."

Raya was not about to be intimidated, however. She raised both her hands and shoved them against his chest plate.

"Yeah, because you'd rather hide behind your anger and your hatred," she shoved him again. "And because it is easier to resort to childish and immature beha..."

He struck her then, a vicious openhanded slap that rocked her head to the side. He heard her shocked gasp, saw the imprint of his hand upon her cheek, felt the corresponding throb of pain in his own fingers. Every ounce of his anger fled in the wake of what he'd just allowed himself to do. He'd crossed a line, one of the few moral lines that he was still in possession of, in fact. Guilt and shame crashed over him in icy waves, burned like acid in his throat. Not once in any of their previous conflicts had he struck her across the face. Not once in all the times that he'd tangled with her in combat had he sought to degrade or debase her in such a barbaric fashion.

He waited, half expecting her to either bust him in the mouth or shred him with the razor sharp daggers in the tips of her gloves. But no, Raya did not strike back at him physically. No, his pretty little kitten ripped him apart with claws that were far, far more dangerous.

"The truth hurts, doesn't it?" Her tone was cool, but her eyes when they shifted, raked him, were burning, blistering green. "Well, if hitting me makes it easier for you to listen and actually hear what it is that I am saying? Then fine. Go ahead and hit me." She stepped up to him, so close that he could see the cheek he'd struck throb. "But if you're going to try and be like my father? Lemme suggest that you hit me just a lil bit harder." Her smile was thin as a blade now. "My ears ain't even ringin' here."

She couldn't have kicked him any lower, or any harder. "Raya..."

"Stuff your apology up your ass," Raya's voice dripped honey. "I don't want it."

"What the _fuck_ do you want then?"

"I want you to have the guts to finally look at the goddamn contents of the jar that you've been dumping out on the table and see them for what they really are-and not for what your warped mind, and the subtle manipulation of Talia al Ghul, have twisted them into being."

"And what makes you such a goddamn expert on me, or any part of my life or relationship with Bruce? Huh?"

He grabbed her arms, shook her once. But he did not strike her. He vowed that he would never lay a hand on her like that again.

"You don't know shit about it lady. Or about me." He shook her again. "So do us both a favor here and shut the _fuck_ up!"

But he'd finally succeeded at pricking the Fenix's temper when he'd struck her. Only, he wasn't getting the fight that he wanted, that he'd been looking for when he'd initially confronted her. And he was terrified of having _this_ type of fight with her because of how he'd already lost control over himself once. But Raya was seemingly hellbent on telling him what nobody else in his family would: the truth.

"How is it that I know so much about you, and about your relationship with Bruce? How about it was Bruce himself who told me?" she slapped her hand against his chest, uncaring of the consequences.

"That it was Bruce that told me that he never saw _you _as a failure-that he saw _himself_ as one! That it was only after he lost you that he realized his error in becoming your mentor and partner instead of the _father_ that you so desperately needed-that you wanted and deserved. And he admitted that he made this error even after Alfred-who has an uncanny ability to be right about these things most of the time-told him that you needed a stable parental influence more than you needed to be a Robin.

And as to what he _said_ in his message to you- that his greatest failures were in not properly training you for your role as Robin, or in failing to protect you from the Joker? What he was doing you stupid son of a bitch," she slapped at his chest plate with both of her hands now. "Was apologize for having failed to be what you needed him to be the most!"

"Stop slappin' at me."

"Or else what? You'll slap me again? Go ahead! But mark my words Jason," her eyes narrowed to slits. "You damn sure are going to hear the truth tonight come hell or high water."

"What do _you_ know about the truth?"

"I know that your death changed him! That it turned him so dark inside that even the night pales in comparison!"

"Yes," his voice dripped venom. "And yet, here we come back to how he didn't _avenge _my death!"

But inwardly, Jason was reeling from everything she was flinging at him. He wanted her to shut up, to go away and leave him alone. But she wouldn't do any of those things. Not unless he made her. And he couldn't bring himself to hit her again. So he hurled his only remaining weapon: logic. But logic was also the weapon that she was using. And wielded with a fine-tuned finesse that even he found impressive. She slammed her palms against his chest, hard enough to make him take a step back.

"And what if he had killed the Joker?" she demanded. "What if he had _murdered _the Joker like you wanted him to? What then? Would all be magically forgiven?" She shoved him again. "Or would you then be bitchin' about how he failed to live up to that larger than life expectation that we all have of him?" She poked him in the chest now with the tip of her finger. "You've damned him for not killing the Joker and would damn him even if he had. Who can play a game like that when the odds are so unfairly staked against them?"

A muscle ticked in Jason's jaw, was her only clue as to how tight a rein he was keeping over himself at that moment. But she was far from done. She slapped a hand on his chest before he could move around her. Jason reached up and grabbed her hand in a bone-crushing grip.

"Woman, I wouldn't push me much farther."

"Oh, am I making the Red Hood angry?" Sarcasm poured from her mouth, had his teeth gnashing. "Am I? _Good_!"

"What do you want from me Raya?" He curled his fingers around the hand she was currently slapping against his chest. And yanked her against him. "What the fuck do ya want from me?"

"I just want you..." temper shuddered back to twist painfully with grief now.

Seeing that flash of pain on her face, hearing it in her voice, reminded him that it had been less than three months since Bruce's death. None of them had had a chance to grieve-_really _grieve. And part of that was because of him and his decision to bury the legacy of Batman in a hailstorm of blood and chaos. Again he felt the sticky fingers of guilt clawing away at his soul. And damned himself, and the woman poking at him.

"I just want you to be the man that _he _believed you to be," he heard her say finally. "The man that he knew you were beneath all your anger and hatred." The raw pain in her voice, on her face crawled into Jason's belly. And slowly twisted him into one solid knot of hurt. "The man that he didn't give up on, no matter what you did or what you said."

"He gave up on me a long time ago, Raya."

She sighed and lifted a hand to his face. But she did not touch him. Jason found himself strangely disappointed.

"Jason, that man went to his grave still loving you, still thinking of you as his son."

"And?"

"And I'm asking you to _try_. Try to be the man he saw and that he loved."

_So I can love you as I loved him_. But she kept those words to herself. Knew he'd only scoff and fling the words back in her face. And her heart was to weary to have him flinging it back into her face.

"What if that man doesn't exist?" He asked the question in a voice laced with desperation. Desperation and an exhaustion that weighed heavier on his heart than the anger and hate and sorrow ever had."What if he's never existed?"

"Bruce believed that man existed, and so does Dick. And I believe that man exists too."

"Why?"

"Because I saw your face after you hit me," she spoke gently now. "I saw the shame, disgust, and hate you felt for what you did. Emotions I never once saw on my father's face after any of the times _he_ slapped me."

He saw that his fingers were trembling when he lifted them to touch her face, gently. There were bruises on it-long healed but visible to his minds eye, that throbbed on his own. "I will _never _hit you like that again." It was a vow he intended to keep. "And neither will your father." He'd kill the bastard first. "That I promise you."

This was the man Bruce saw in spades. The one that he had believed existed and did everything he could to help. She had seen this man in a series of too brief flashes through the years as well. But there were dark patches to Jason Todd that were in desperate need of being smoothed out. And one of those dark areas deeply troubled her. Jason, much like Damian, viewed murder in a far different context then the rest of them did. But where Damian was capable of learning how to at least curb his natural instincts, Jason was a full grown adult. Change, for him, was going to be a whole lot more difficult then it was going to be for someone Damian's age. Especially given the dark and violent history that Jason had. But there was hope. And for her, hope was enough to heal with.

"I know that you'll never hit me like that again. You didn't ..." her lips curved fully now. "Though it was obvious that you really, _really _wanted to."

He didn't bother to deny it. Because there had been a part of him-a dark and sinister part of him that had wanted to hurt her, that had begged him to hurt her, that had hungered to hurt her. And that part of himself had him scared absolutely shitless at that moment.

"Raya, you realize that you could be asking for the impossible here."

"No, I'm not," she said gently. "Jason, I'm not asking you to do anything but _try_."

_Try_. It was the only thing she'd asked of him that night. It was the only thing that she'd ever asked of him in fact. And as Jason drifted back into the present, he realized that it was all she continued to expect from him. She'd hit all the right buttons that night. Slapped him in the face with truth and logic before forcing him to finally take a good, long look at himself and see the kind of man he could be, if he but tried to be that man. He'd begun changing his ways after that night, first by trying to temper his more violent brand of justice and then by trying to blend that brand of justice into something that actually helped the greater good. He'd slowly begun to make amends, to repair some of the damage that he'd caused, and worked on building relationships with both his oldest and youngest brother's. He'd also managed to forge an alliance and friendship with people who were like him: Outlaws.

And it was partially because a strong-willed, much to intelligent, and pridefully passionate woman had decided to do what Batman couldn't: reform the Red Hood. And his youngest brother wanted _him _to explain just how it was that Raya'd managed to get beneath his skin? Jason snorted as he climbed onto his bike. Shit, he still wasn't sure how exactly the damned woman had managed to get beneath _his_ skin. _Or why I allow her to remain there._ Still, he thought as he hit the throttle and fired up the bikes engine, it wouldn't hurt to stop in at the Penthouse and make sure that everyone was alright. And he _was _having a sudden craving for waffles with fresh blackberries. A grin split his lips for the first time that night as he gunned the engine and sped out the alley and out onto the silent city streets.

* * *

_To be continued_ in **Of Batman and Nightwing and Robin**


End file.
